“Ethan, I…”
“Wait a sec.” He took a long drag off the cigarette and crushed it under his heel. “See, I’m already saying it wrong. I just don’t want you to go. I want you to stay so I can make you French toast for breakfast in the morning. I swear I’m not trying to get you to fuck me or anything. I’m not like that. I haven’t had sex since the last steady girlfriend I had, and we broke up more than four months ago. Shit, now I’m just babbling like an idiot.”
“Ethan, you don’t have to tell me this,” I said, secretly thrilled he didn’t appear to be a complete manwhore or anything, not that he couldn’t be one if he wanted to with his looks and that smile. Regardless, I was glad to hear it had been as long for him—a little longer, even—as it had been for me, not that I was planning on sleeping with him or anything.
Not yet anyway.
“I know,” he said. “I just don’t want you to think I’m like that. I really like you, and I want to spend more time with you. If you leave, I might not ever see you again.”
“Of course you would,” I told him.
“You don’t know that.” His tone was insistent. “The last thing my mom said to me was “See you on Monday.” She didn’t mean for it to happen. She didn’t know we’d never lay eyes on each other again. Life’s a lot more fragile than you think. I don’t want to assume you aren’t going to be hit by a bus or have a fluke medical condition flare up all of a sudden and risk never making you breakfast. I’d regret never making you breakfast. Please stay with me.”
“It seems fairly unlikely…” I started to say that nothing was going to happen to me. I wanted to reassure him that sort of thing didn’t really happen, but I couldn’t. He knew that wasn’t always the case. He had lived through just such a fluke, and anything I said now would be a slap in the face to him.
I tried to wrap my head around what he was asking. He wanted me to spend the night with him so he could make me breakfast in the morning. He wanted to spend more time with me, and I wasn’t ready to leave just yet, either. However, it was getting late, and the Ubers were going to get fewer and farther between. I definitely wasn’t going to ride the subway after mi
dnight—too many crazies. At home, there was still my car to deal with.
But stay overnight with a guy I just met? Even for college students, that was pressing the limit a little. What would Zoey say? No—scratch that. Zoey would already be dry-humping him. What about Presley, the voice of social reason? She’d never get past the piercings even if she did hear his last name. My father…well, Dad would probably just lie down and have a coronary.
Ethan reached over and ran his hand over my cheek, stroking my cheekbone with his thumb.
“Please stay,” he said and brushed his lips against mine. “You could use one of the guest rooms if you want, but I’d rather you stayed in my room.”
“I don’t know,” I replied, trying hard not to get lost in his eyes again.
“I’d like to make out with you again, if that’s okay.”
“You have a knack for changing the subject,” I said accusingly. Ethan laughed.
“Sometimes certain topics need to be shut down,” he told me. “People like to harp on the things they can’t do anything about, and it gets them all worried, upset, and even angry. Either you will decide to stay with me in my bed, in the guest room, or not at all. At some point, you’ll decide, and I can’t control your decision. So, I change the subject to something else so you aren’t just spending all your time being anxious about it, and I won’t be either. I would rather be enjoying your company, however long it lasts.”
“You sure are smart for your age,” I mused.
“I’ve lived a lot in the past few years,” Ethan said. “I think the only real mistakes I have made have been when I didn’t tell someone how I felt or didn’t do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. You never know what tomorrow’s going to bring, so don’t wait to do or say something important. You only make real mistakes when you refuse to live in the moment. I guess it’s my life motto now.”
Taking his advice, whether he meant it to be advice or not, I reached over and took his face in my hands, bringing his lips to mine. The night air had cooled off the thin silver rings, and the contrast between the metal and his soft, warm lips was enticing. I reached my tongue out and ran it over the little hoops, warming them. Ethan’s tongue pushed past my lips and stroked across my tongue, slowly caressing it and tasting me.
“Stay with me…please,” Ethan mumbled between kisses.
“I’ll stay,” I said. I felt his tongue reach back into my mouth, and his hands clasped the sides of my face. He found my chin with his mouth and then my neck and my shoulder before making the trail back again to my lips.
I didn’t know if what I was doing was a good idea or how it would look or how my father would react if he found out, but I was going to take Ethan’s advice, at least for now. I wasn’t going to count this night among my regrets. I was going to seize this moment, and I was going to do what I wanted to do and stay with him, consequences be damned.
Maybe I would learn a little.
Chapter 7—Evaluate
“Want a foot massage?”
I wasn’t sure if I was going to get used to Ethan’s bluntness. Then I freaked myself out a little, realizing I was thinking about how I was going to get used to the behavior patterns of a guy I met twelve hours ago. Of those twelve hours, I think we had been making out for nearly three of them. After we ended the last session, we went searching Ethan’s three bathrooms for ChapStick. I guess his idea of a make-out recess was to rub my feet.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“I’d like to,” Ethan said. “I’m willing to bet your feet still hurt from wearing those fuck-awful shoes.”
“Those ‘fuck-awful shoes,’” I said, “cost eight hundred dollars. They’re perfect for the suit.”